Music Reviews : London-Based Nash Ensemble in Local Debut

The good news about the London-based Nash Ensemble--which takes its name from 18th-Century English architect John Nash, presumably for the harmoniousness of his designs--has been coming our way for some 20 years via reviews and numerous recordings.

In-the-flesh confirmation of the group’s virtues arrived on Friday, courtesy of the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College, which presented the local debut of the four-member core ensemble (the Nash exists in various configurations) in the downtown Doheny Mansion.

The curiously structured program opened with what turned out to be the evening’s most impressive offering: a grandly secure, dramatic, resplendent reading by pianist Ian Brown, violinist Marcia Crayford and cellist Christopher van Kampen of Beethoven’s D-major Trio, the so-called “Ghost.”

Until it breaks into a memorably jaunty little samba tune in its finale, Milhaud’s 1936 Suite for violin, clarinet and piano, which followed, is one of those frothy, frisky, familiar (even on first hearing) bits of French fluff that bypasses the mind, which is OK, and barely catches the ear, which isn’t.

Still, one had to admire Friday’s spiffy performance, which centered on the agile, bright-toned clarinet of Duncan Prescott.

Elsewhere, there were major problems for this listener, if none for the performers. In the doggedly downbeat second half of their program, the players presented first Faure’s meandering, pointless Piano Trio in D minor, Opus 120, which displays the exhaustion of a once-great lyric gift, then the tuneless convolutions of Brahms’ hardly more winning Clarinet Trio in A minor.

The Nash minimized the longueurs of both works with rhythmically alert, cohesive, lush-toned execution. One wishes them a speedy return, bearing different gifts.